Another Damned Blog

The conclusion to the story of our luggage problems with Northwest was that my future father-in-law and I drove out to the Cedar Rapids airport to fill out a claim form in the hopes of finding our bags.
Naturally, when we arrived, the suitcases—along with about a hundred others—were lined up neatly in rows to the [...]

“Now, IT is easily operated using four flexigrip handles. Two of them are on each side. Left side for throttle, right side for steering. The third flexigrip is gently inserted into the anus, to keep the driver in place.”
* * *
Today, 3:45 a.m. Eastern: The fiancée and I wake up and catch a taxi [...]

Was at work yesterday and saw the now familiar acronym “OMG” on a page.
OK, so it used to be that when I saw “OMG,” I translated it in my head: “Oh, my God.”
And then it came to pass that I translated it in my head just soundwise, as “oh em jee.”
Now I just see it [...]

To wit:
I took Aaron to “I Am Legend” for his birthday. I wouldn’t bother if I were you. Once the dog dies, you stop caring. (And no, that’s not a real spoiler, so spare me the emails. If you don’t see the German shepherd heading for oblivion within the first five minutes, you need cognitive [...]

Gah.

Regarding Amazon’s new ereader, the Kindle, author Jonathan Franzen has this to say:
“People who care about literature care about substance and permanence,” wrote novelist Jonathan Franzen, author of “The Corrections,” in an e-mail. “The essence of electronics is mutability and transience. I can see travel guides and Michael Crichton novels translating into pixels easily enough. [...]

Names have been changed.
9:31 PM Ernest: Are you really busy?
me: kind of. what’s up?
9:32 PM Ernest: nothing, just bored at my grandparents place in Canada, so I saw you online and thought you might entertain me.
me: alas, there is copy, and it must be edited.
ha. Canada.
Canada is boring.
Ernest: No problem, [...]

But do you know what is not the worst movie ever? Contrary to popular belief, Daredevil, starring Ben Affleck. I liked it fine when I saw it in the theater, and every time I catch a few minutes of it on FX, I feel the same way.
Hate on, haters. Just stay outta Hell’s Kitchen.
—j

… and want to see the GZA (yes, the one from the Wu-Tang Clan) perform his legendary album Liquid Swords in its entirety (although apparently not in any kind of sequence) tonight at 11 pm at the Knitting Factory, all you have to do is:

Email me.
Be willing to come to my apartment to pick up [...]

… or “of a natural person,” if you will.
I was looking for an excuse to use the “More” tag, and here one is. If you don’t want to read any further than the next graf, don’t click.
Hey, you know what happens when all you eat for two days is applesauce, chicken soup, and Jell-O?

From Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner:
We believe that the schools must serve as the principal medium for developing in youth the attitudes and skills of social, political, and cultural criticism. No. That is not emphatic enough. Try this: In the early 1960s, an interviewer was trying to get Ernest [...]

Here I sit, full of Tylenol PM, penicillin, applesauce, and Jell-O, the back of my throat no longer feeling as though it was covered with shrapnel. I dreamed of pizza last night—two kinds: Little Caesar’s and Papa John’s. I so cannot wait until I can eat real things again. Lord, how I hate chicken noodle [...]

Oh, this fucking blows. I just got home from the doctor, who actually gasped when she saw my tonsils. She prescribed some antibiotics and then told me there was a minute chance that my throat would swell up so much I wouldn’t be able to swallow, and that if that happened, I’d have to go [...]

… and I will be dead of the bird flu soon. I’m sure of it. I’m imbibing lemon zinger tea at a furious pace; I always feel gypped when six or seven cups of super-hot tea in a row don’t, like, wash the illness right out of me.
Hooray! We get to have a McLuhan discussion [...]

… and we are resting. And trying to spend some time not on the Internet.
See you tomorrow.
—j

Dear Reader(s),
My original plan was that the blog would display only a single post per day on the front page, as a stark contrast to the bulk of other blogs out there that update every six minutes and thereby contribute to what Neil Postman refers to as the information glut.
Then I got bored of having [...]

Running time: 70:43
Listen
Every once in a while, a work of art appears that is inarguably excellent. No one, for example, can dispute the sheer quality of Michelangelo’s David, Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Beethoven’s Ninth, or Raiders of the Lost Ark. They might not be to your tastes, but you’d be hard pressed to contend that [...]

If you’re fortunate enough to be in one of the places it’s already opened, go see Juno immediately. Now.
—j

If you’re going to start reading Marshall McLuhan—and you should; he’s deeply underappreciated, grossly misunderstood, and wildly perception-changing, once you start digging him—you’ll want to begin with Understanding Media. It’s simultaneously shorter and more expansive than his previous book, The Gutenberg Galaxy, and cheaper than the book before that, The Mechanical Bride (used paperbacks are [...]